TV-Series
Description
Rakan, also rendered as Lakan, is a supporting figure in The Apothecary Diaries who holds a rare combination of brilliance and strangeness. He is a high-ranking tactician in the Li military, holds a position among the highest posts in the nation's military hierarchy, and serves as the head of the La Clan, a family known for producing eccentric individuals with exceptional specialized talents. He is also the biological father of the protagonist, Maomao, and the former lover and eventual husband of the courtesan Fengxian.
Rakan's background is marked by a profound and isolating condition. He has prosopagnosia, or face blindness, which means he cannot distinguish one person's face from another. Because of this, the world appears to him as a collection of interchangeable figures, and he learned to cope by categorizing people as if they were shogi or go pieces, identifying them through their voices, mannerisms, and the functions they serve. This coping mechanism, taught to him by his uncle Luomen, helped shape him into an exceptional strategist but left him emotionally detached from other people. The only two people who have ever appeared to him with clear, recognizable faces are Fengxian and Maomao, which makes his attachments to them rare and intense.
In personality, Rakan is widely regarded as a brilliant but unsettling eccentric. He is playful, speaks in riddles, and often behaves in ways that others find baffling or unnerving, earning him a reputation as a strange man and a sly fox within court circles. He has a cheerful demeanor that masks a ruthless, calculating intelligence, and he disregards social hierarchy entirely, using people as pieces on a game board and orchestrating situations to his liking without hesitation. At the same time, he is inept in many ordinary areas of life, spends much of his time lounging and gossiping, and relies on his talent for spotting and recruiting capable subordinates.
His motivations are deeply tied to his past. As a young man, he met Fengxian, a brilliant courtesan at the Verdigris House who defeated him at go, a feat few could accomplish. The two fell in love and connected intellectually across the game board. In an attempt to free her from her life as a courtesan, Rakan devised a scheme to lower her value by getting her pregnant, intending to buy her out more cheaply. However, he was sent away on a long military campaign by his father's machinations, and he never received the letters Fengxian sent him. Left believing she had been abandoned, Fengxian gave birth to their daughter Maomao, lost her status, fell into poverty, contracted syphilis, and gradually lost both her health and her sanity. In her despair she mutilated herself and her infant daughter. When Rakan finally returned, the damage had already been done, and this tragedy became the defining sorrow of his life.
In the story, Rakan's role is that of a secondary character whose actions and history reverberate through the main narrative. He is revealed to be Maomao's biological father, a fact that explains much about her own exceptional abilities and the complicated circumstances of her upbringing. His presence in the court introduces political complications for Maomao, as her connection to him makes her a figure of interest and suspicion, and his attempts to claim her as his daughter repeatedly disrupt her life.
His key relationships are centered on his family. With his daughter Maomao, he is an overly emotional, doting father who proudly refers to himself as papa and becomes frantic when she is in danger. His love for her is genuine but clumsy and overwhelming, and Maomao, who blames him for her mother's suffering and resents his interference, avoids and rejects him. His relationship with Jinshi is antagonistic and comedic, as Rakan sees Jinshi as a rival for Maomao's attention and enjoys testing and vexing him with difficult demands. With Fengxian, his bond is the most poignant, as he never stops loving her despite her ruin, and he ultimately redeems her and makes her his wife, caring for her even as her mind and body have deteriorated beyond recovery.
Rakan's development is gradual and centered on reckoning with the harm his schemes and absences have caused. Beneath his bizarre and calculating exterior lies regret over the pain he has brought to the people he cares about. His decision to take Fengxian in and marry her despite her condition is a form of atonement, and his persistent, if clumsy, attempts to connect with Maomao show a slowly emerging willingness to care for others in ways that go beyond strategy. He remains an ineffective and frustrating father figure, but his devotion to the few people he can truly see gives his character a hidden warmth.
His notable abilities stem from his extraordinary mind. He is a tactical genius, feared and respected for his ability to read situations and anticipate outcomes, and he is nearly unbeatable at go and shogi. Unlike Maomao, who solves problems by gathering evidence and reasoning logically, Rakan operates on sharp intuition, sensing when something is wrong and acting on it. He is also a superb judge of talent, able to identify what people excel at simply by observing them, which allows him to surround himself with capable subordinates. Physically, he is deceptively strong despite his lanky and unkempt appearance, and he is also an extremely light drinker, a weakness that others occasionally exploit. His distinctive monocle serves no functional purpose and is simply an affectation. Overall, Rakan is a character defined by contradiction: a cold strategist with genuine capacity for love, a man who sees everyone as pieces yet treasures the two faces that appear clearly to him.
Rakan's background is marked by a profound and isolating condition. He has prosopagnosia, or face blindness, which means he cannot distinguish one person's face from another. Because of this, the world appears to him as a collection of interchangeable figures, and he learned to cope by categorizing people as if they were shogi or go pieces, identifying them through their voices, mannerisms, and the functions they serve. This coping mechanism, taught to him by his uncle Luomen, helped shape him into an exceptional strategist but left him emotionally detached from other people. The only two people who have ever appeared to him with clear, recognizable faces are Fengxian and Maomao, which makes his attachments to them rare and intense.
In personality, Rakan is widely regarded as a brilliant but unsettling eccentric. He is playful, speaks in riddles, and often behaves in ways that others find baffling or unnerving, earning him a reputation as a strange man and a sly fox within court circles. He has a cheerful demeanor that masks a ruthless, calculating intelligence, and he disregards social hierarchy entirely, using people as pieces on a game board and orchestrating situations to his liking without hesitation. At the same time, he is inept in many ordinary areas of life, spends much of his time lounging and gossiping, and relies on his talent for spotting and recruiting capable subordinates.
His motivations are deeply tied to his past. As a young man, he met Fengxian, a brilliant courtesan at the Verdigris House who defeated him at go, a feat few could accomplish. The two fell in love and connected intellectually across the game board. In an attempt to free her from her life as a courtesan, Rakan devised a scheme to lower her value by getting her pregnant, intending to buy her out more cheaply. However, he was sent away on a long military campaign by his father's machinations, and he never received the letters Fengxian sent him. Left believing she had been abandoned, Fengxian gave birth to their daughter Maomao, lost her status, fell into poverty, contracted syphilis, and gradually lost both her health and her sanity. In her despair she mutilated herself and her infant daughter. When Rakan finally returned, the damage had already been done, and this tragedy became the defining sorrow of his life.
In the story, Rakan's role is that of a secondary character whose actions and history reverberate through the main narrative. He is revealed to be Maomao's biological father, a fact that explains much about her own exceptional abilities and the complicated circumstances of her upbringing. His presence in the court introduces political complications for Maomao, as her connection to him makes her a figure of interest and suspicion, and his attempts to claim her as his daughter repeatedly disrupt her life.
His key relationships are centered on his family. With his daughter Maomao, he is an overly emotional, doting father who proudly refers to himself as papa and becomes frantic when she is in danger. His love for her is genuine but clumsy and overwhelming, and Maomao, who blames him for her mother's suffering and resents his interference, avoids and rejects him. His relationship with Jinshi is antagonistic and comedic, as Rakan sees Jinshi as a rival for Maomao's attention and enjoys testing and vexing him with difficult demands. With Fengxian, his bond is the most poignant, as he never stops loving her despite her ruin, and he ultimately redeems her and makes her his wife, caring for her even as her mind and body have deteriorated beyond recovery.
Rakan's development is gradual and centered on reckoning with the harm his schemes and absences have caused. Beneath his bizarre and calculating exterior lies regret over the pain he has brought to the people he cares about. His decision to take Fengxian in and marry her despite her condition is a form of atonement, and his persistent, if clumsy, attempts to connect with Maomao show a slowly emerging willingness to care for others in ways that go beyond strategy. He remains an ineffective and frustrating father figure, but his devotion to the few people he can truly see gives his character a hidden warmth.
His notable abilities stem from his extraordinary mind. He is a tactical genius, feared and respected for his ability to read situations and anticipate outcomes, and he is nearly unbeatable at go and shogi. Unlike Maomao, who solves problems by gathering evidence and reasoning logically, Rakan operates on sharp intuition, sensing when something is wrong and acting on it. He is also a superb judge of talent, able to identify what people excel at simply by observing them, which allows him to surround himself with capable subordinates. Physically, he is deceptively strong despite his lanky and unkempt appearance, and he is also an extremely light drinker, a weakness that others occasionally exploit. His distinctive monocle serves no functional purpose and is simply an affectation. Overall, Rakan is a character defined by contradiction: a cold strategist with genuine capacity for love, a man who sees everyone as pieces yet treasures the two faces that appear clearly to him.